Solastalgia and nostalgia: the role of emotional bonds to place in refugee and host community interactions

ABSTRACT

While sustainable solutions to protracted refugee situations remain elusive, conditions for refugees and their host communities can deteriorate. Drawing from environmental psychology, we apply a place attachment framework to analyse wellbeing and refugee-host interactions in protracted situations to inform alternative interventions. Based in the Bekaa Valley in Lebanon, we carried out qualitative interviews on place attachment with Syrian and Palestinian refugees from Syria who had fled the conflict in Syria, and their Lebanese and Palestinian host communities. Results show a rural host population with strong place identity experiencing, we suggest, solastalgia due to refugee-related place change. Strong place identity contributed to anti-refugee sentiment as a form of place protective behaviour. Syrian refugees had no secure base in Lebanon but rather nostalgia for Syria. This was driven, in part, by immobility preventing meaningful interactions with locals in surrounding areas. Palestinian refugees from Syria, doubly displaced, were increasingly defined by the Palestinian dimension of their identity. Palestinian refugee hosts articulated a lack of a secure base in Lebanon but also a sense of loss at the changes occurring. A place attachment framing highlights pathways to ameliorate some of the mental health impacts of protracted displacement and remove barriers to social cohesion.

KEYWORDS:

• Place attachment
• mobility
• solastalgia
• refugees
• host population

1. Introduction

Interviewer: Do you go out? Outside this area here?

Respondent: No, I have no one. I stay in this house. I suffocate … (SYR4)

The surroundings changed, the people changed, the buildings, the environment, the structures, so you cannot change anything, but you have to adapt to this reality. You might not like this reality, but that’s it … (LEB2)

Refugees have had their bonds to place violently broken and their socio-political status is one of temporariness rather than rootedness. Yet, emotional bonds to place are intrinsic to human wellbeing and contribute to attributes such as identity formation, self-efficacy and a sense of continuity (Fresque-Baxter and Armitage 2012). The complex drivers of forced displacement mean that return is not straightforward, or even possible, and refugees can live for years or decades under physical, social and rights-based deprivations (Hyndman and Giles 2016; UNHCR 2022). Thus, the camps and policy solutions put in place for temporary humanitarian situations become semi-permanent (Hart, Paszkiewicz, and Albadra 2018).

Refugees demonstrate agency within this semi-permanent state of temporariness. They identify ways to advance their lives, for example, through short-term migration and mobility (Kraler, Etzold, and Ferreira 2021) or entrepreneurship within camp settings (Kachkar 2019). Refugees also find ways to build a sense of home. Refugees work to improve their spaces and cultivate gardens or host friends and family to make themselves feel more at home (Brook 2003; Vandevoordt 2017). However, beyond the domestic space, refugees struggle to establish a wider sense of belonging in their host country (Beeckmans, Singh, and Gola 2022).

Functional bonds to place require meaningful interactions with people in place (Scannell and Gifford 2010) and thus depend on positive interactions between refugees and the host population. Host countries often create hostile environments to discourage permanent settlement, prevent refugees from finding employment (Webber 2019) and may actively seek to return refugees involuntarily to unsafe settings (Chimni 2004). The hostile environment created by the government interacts with local-level animosity towards refugees. Reluctance to integrate refugee populations is, in part, a result of lower levels of donor support for repatriation programmes from the international community, and more stringent asylum processes in key receiving countries; the burden for supporting refugees falls on low-income countries (Kraler, Etzold, and Ferreira 2021). Yet, there is often little chance for refugees to return. Protracted refugee situations result from the ongoing nature of the cause of displacement, such as conflict, a lack of effective state institutions or the persecution of minority groups (Milner 2014) meaning it is not safe for people to go back. However, protracted refugee stays alter the places in which they occur and can stretch the hospitality of local populations (Carpi and Pınar Şenoğuz 2019). In turn, negative attitudes to refugees and asylum seekers in the host country can lead to a reluctance to support integration and further drive refugee precarity and marginalisation (Loescher and Milner 2008). For this reason, humanitarian responses include social cohesion activities and channel resources to support host communities (Harb and Saab 2014).

This research puts the place detachment experienced by refugees in the context of the place change caused by refugees. We examine the relationship between the place attachment of host communities and refugees to identify alternative approaches to improve the wellbeing of both. Research on refugees and social cohesion has yet to engage with environmental psychology and the concepts of place attachment, with some notable exceptions (van Liempt and Miellet 2021; Hiitola and Vähä-Savo 2022). Thus, the research investigates two hypotheses: (1) Despite homemaking practices, refugees have low levels of place attachment; and (2) Refugees threaten the place identity of locals, undermining social cohesion. The research takes place in the Bekaa Valley in Lebanon. Here, the rapid arrival of hundreds of thousands of refugees, in the context of pre-existing weak governance structures and high incidence of poverty, has created a humanitarian situation. We interviewed Syrian refugees and Palestinian refugees from Syria (PRS) and their Lebanese and Palestinian host communities.

The opening quotes exemplify the current situation and themes of this paper. The first quote is from a Syrian refugee in her early thirties. Her world is small, confined to her house. She does not move in the same circles or spaces as the Lebanese: markets, restaurants, parks, workplaces and visiting family and friends. She fails to have positive interactions in the places she visits because of a lack of official papers causing fear of the authorities or xenophobia leading her to avoid the locals. Further, the money spent on travelling outside of her area could be spent on food or medicine. Her bonds to place are absent or dysfunctional. Instead, she has a nostalgia for home that no longer exists. The second quote is from a local Lebanese man in his fifties, strongly bonded to the village in which he grew up. The importance of the village to his sense of self means he experiences a sense of sadness and loss with the arrival of the refugees, as the place he loves changes. While the economic and social and security problems the locals associate with refugees can be exaggerated, the changes in their home town and, a sense of solastalgia, is very real.

2. Place attachment, refugees and their host communities

Humans can exist only in relation to the places around them; emotional bonds to place are part of the human condition (Tuan 1975). When positive, those bonds can contribute to well-being and processes of identity formation (Fresque-Baxter and Armitage 2012; Scannell and Gifford 2017), conversely breaking bonds through forced displacement undermines wellbeing and can lead to intergenerational trauma (e.g. Fullilove 2001). The ways in which people form emotional bonds to place are diverse and dynamic. Meaningful places change throughout the life course as the locus of daily life and circumstances shift (Brown and Perkins 1992) and meanings are assigned to places both individually or as part of a common cultural heritage (Manzo 2003). People can have negative emotional reactions to places, for example, in settings of domestic abuse (Meth 2003) or lack attachments at all (place ambivalence). Further, emotional bonds to place are not always desirable; they can become dysfunctional if they prevent people adapting to inevitable changes or from leaving at-risk places (Fried 2000; Marshall et al. 2012). Strong place attachment is associated with attributes such as length of residence and small, homogenous communities (Hummon 1992; Lewicka 2011a). Finally, attachments form in different ways – some could be considered unselfconscious and described as a rootedness, yet others are actively formed over time through engaging with the history and culture of a place, and community activities within it (Scannell and Gifford 2010).

Forced detachment from home defines the refugee experience, along with conditions of precarity and marginalisation that make forming positive emotional attachments to place difficult. Therefore, home, home making and emotional connections to place are common themes in refugee studies. For refugees, multiple connections to different homes and different definitions of home exist simultaneously (Brun and Fábos 2017; Zerva and Ahbouch 2019). Refugees attempt to build physical homes and family life to establish normality (Brun 2015). However, attachments can exist to places remote from the physical location of the refugee or forged from memory (Sen 2014). Nostalgia and longing for home, even if never visited, can also contribute to refugee identity (Kabachnik, Regulska, and Mitchneck 2010; Brun 2015). Mobility and transnational social networks are used as coping and longer-term resilience building strategies by refugees globally (Long 2014). However, promoting mobility as a solution to displacement can undermine the ability of refugees to form attachments to a secure base and perpetuate conditions of uncertainty and stasis (Brun and Fábos 2017; Roman et al. 2021; Jacobs et al. 2022).

Refugees share their places with the local population. The countries that host the most refugees are generally low-to-middle income. The communities that host refugees can be on the social and geographical margins of society because refugees who have lost their assets seek low-cost land and housing. As such, the material conditions of local populations are often similar to, or worse than, those of refugees. In these situations of poverty, often accompanied by weak governance, the arrival of the refugees can negatively impact the provision of basic services (Harb and Saab 2014; Rabil 2016) and short-term negative impacts on wages have been identified, particularly in the informal sector (Calderón-Mejía and Ibáñez 2016), that can persist for women (Morales 2018). However, the economic impacts of refugees on the local economy are minimal and can be both positive or negative depending on the context (Becker and Ferrara 2019). However, local communities often perceive the impacts to be higher, with such perceptions exacerbated by incendiary media cover (World Vision 2015; Ansar and Khaled 2021; Betts et al. 2022).

As such, humanitarian and development interventions address the needs of local host populations alongside refugees and work to build social cohesion between different groups. In protracted displacement settings, social cohesion activities aim to reduce tensions, and the potential for conflict, between refugees and host communities and among refugees through community outreach, joint resilience building and peacebuilding activities (Ozcurumez and Hoxha 2020). Contact theory suggests that the more locals interact with newcomers, the less hostility they will feel. However, findings are mixed. For example, attitudes have been found to depend on pre-existing levels of diversity within the neighbourhood and the nature of the interaction with newcomers: positive interactions are more important than frequent interactions (De Coninck et al. 2021). Further, close physical proximity does not necessarily mean different groups interact (Fiddian-Qasmiyeh et al. 2011).

In research on anti-immigration (rather than specifically anti-refugee) sentiment, concerns about impacts on culture and values, rather than the economy, drive negative attitudes (Hainmueller and Hopkins 2014). At the neighbourhood level, this cultural threat can take on a material form, as newcomers change the character of a place (Newman 2013). Studies have found that pre-existing relationships, shared identities and common experiences are associated with positive perceptions of refugees (De Berry and Roberts 2018; Ghosn, Braithwaite, and Chu 2019). For example, for Palestinian refugee children hosting Syrian refugees in Jordan, the shared experience of refugeehood was associated with more positive attitudes (Barron et al. 2023). Host communities are diverse and, as this example shows, can be refugees themselves (Fiddian-Qasmiyeh 2016).

Recognising the basic need of individuals to form attachments to a secure base can help improve wellbeing outcomes for refugees, particularly for their mental health. Emotional bonds to place support the need for self-determination, by contributing to a person’s feelings of autonomy, competency and relatedness (Albers et al. 2021) and maintaining self-continuity despite displacement (Di Masso et al. 2019). Studies carried out with refugees settled in rural areas in Europe find that forming attachments to place and building a new place identity requires interactions with the local community. Thus, there are limits to the ability of refugees to attach to place without support from, and social interactions with, the wider community (Glorius et al. 2020; van Liempt and Miellet 2021; Hiitola and Vähä-Savo 2022). Further, locals are more inclined to support refugees when they see that refugee as part of their own institutions and group, which requires refugees to form a local place identity (Nicolais et al. 2021).

3. Refugee response in Lebanon and the Bekaa Valley

A long history with Palestinian refugees, and a historically complex relationship with the Syrian government, complicated the refugee response in Lebanon (Geha and Talhouk 2018). In the first several years of the Syrian refugee crisis, the Lebanese government relied on existing agreements with Syria that kept the border open (Janmyr 2006). The influx of refugees was constant and large resulting in Lebanon hosting the second-largest Syrian refugee population worldwide – over 1.5 million refugees (Geha and Talhouk 2018). 855,172 of these refugees were registered with UNHCR as of end of March 2021 (UNICEF et al. 2021) and there were 42,000 PRS (Eloubeidi and Reuter 2023). From 2014, the Lebanese government began putting plans in place resulting in much stricter border control, and for Palestinians coming from Syria, a total closure of the border. In 2015, the government implemented a freeze on registration of all new refugees that was effectively a ban on entry. Refugees are referred to as ‘displaced persons’ by the government to minimise responsibility towards them (Janmyr 2006). Additionally, there has been no clear housing policy except a strict ‘no camp’ policy, for fear of long-term refugee settlement (Turner 2015). This has resulted in the growth of informal tented settlements (ITS) and sub-standard rental housing (Yassin et al. 2015).

Within Lebanon, the Bekaa valley hosts the highest proportion of Syrian refugees (39%), constituting around half of the population (UNHCR 2023). This agricultural region is one of the poorer regions in Lebanon, historically marginalised by the government, and in which certain powerful local families exert much influence. Historically, the Bekaa region has had continuous trade and labour relations with Syria, with seasonal migrant workers coming to work in the agricultural sector in the Bekaa. The poor economic conditions being experienced are thus not rooted in the Syrian crisis, but rather in the deteriorating political conditions locally and regionally (Al-Masri and Abla 2017). However, the increase in population has strained municipalities (Beaujouan and Rasheed 2020).

On arrival, Palestinians from Syria faced new levels of discrimination and social exclusion, and a different set of pressures from their Syrian counterparts, due to differences in legal status. Palestinians from Syria, like those in Lebanon, fall under the mandate of UNWRA (United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East) that, since 1948, has been responsible for supporting Palestinian refugees worldwide. However, many of the resources for refugees are directed to UNHCR (the office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees; the UN Refugee Agency), to which Palestinians from Syria do not have access. In Syria, Palestinians held most of their civil rights and considered themselves as Syrians. Palestinians in Lebanon experience more exclusionary policies, such as being prohibited from working in 39 professional sectors and owning property (Eloubeidi and Reuter 2023).

The continuing humanitarian situation for refugees has been compounded more recently by the COVID pandemic and socio-economic problems in Lebanon leading to currency depreciation, price spikes and subsidy removals (Government of Lebanon and the United Nations 2021; UNICEF et al. 2021). The economic crisis has exacerbated the poor conditions in which Syrian refugees are living (Government of Lebanon and the United Nations 2021). It has also increased the hostility towards Syrians, as the Lebanese host population blames the refugees for the economic crisis (Içduygu and Nimer 2020). Thus, the current situation is characterised by debates surrounding, and action on, forced return of refugees to Syria (Içduygu and Nimer 2020) which makes understanding refugee conceptualisations of home, and where their attachment to place lies, increasingly important.

4. Methods

We carried out 45 semi-structured interviews over two weeks in July 2017 in the Bekaa Valley. This period of data collection took place after two pilot visits in 2017 to identify key themes and potential locations. Follow-up interviews took place in 2018, when research outcomes were also brought back to the respondents (in the form of a report and graphic novel in Arabic).

We worked with a local Palestinian NGO when identifying locations for carrying out the research. Potential respondents were identified by an informal community leader, recommended by the NGO (himself a Palestinian refugee from Syria) who also accompanied us on the research. Half of the interviews were with refugees from Syria (defined as anybody who had come from Syria under conditions of stress or duress since 2011) living in ITS or privately rented accommodation. The remainder of the interviews were with the local host population. Within the refugee respondents, half were PRS and within the host respondents, half were Palestinian refugees from Lebanon (PRL). All interviews were carried out by the authors in Arabic, with Helen Adams using translators. Interviews took place in a small town in the Bekaa Valley, which is close to the Syrian border and has experienced a four-fold increase in its population since the crisis began in Syria. Further details of the location are not provided to further protect the anonymity of the respondents.

Ethical clearance for the research was obtained from the King’s College London Research Ethics Committee (Reference: HR-16/17-4787). Informed consent was obtained before any interviews. Potential participants were read an information sheet, a copy of which was left with them, and gave consent by answering questions on the consent form (see online data repository link below for copies of these documents).

We took detailed notes on each of the interviews which were typed up directly. From these notes we carried out an initial qualitative analysis, applying the analytical framework to generate key themes. These themes formed the basis of the report, graphic novel and initial results. Of the 45 interviews, 20 were selected for transcription in Arabic, translation into English and more in-depth analysis. The project lacked resources to transcribe and translate all interviews. We chose five respondents from each sub-group (Syrian, PRS, Lebanese and PRL) balancing across gender, type of accommodation and socio-economic status, also taking into account the richness of the interview discussion, the representativeness of the interviews, and the themes contained in the interview. English transcripts were coded using the qualitative analysis software NVivo with codes drawn from the analytical framework presented in Table 1. Anonymised versions of the English interview transcripts are available to download from the UK Data Service’s online data repository, Reshare: https://reshare.ukdataservice.ac.uk/853108/.

Table 1. Place attachment framework used in the research.

Theme	Justification	Codes	References
Significant places	To understand to where locals and refugees actively ascribe meaning and emotional connection and their contributions to a secure base and place identity.	Past, present, imagined and future places (housing, neighbourhood, country, nation), material objects, social connections (family, neighbours, host community, refugees)	Manzo (2005), Lewicka (2011a), Di Masso et al. (2019)
Levels of mobility	Length of residence is associated with strength of attachment. Meaningful interactions in place are key to forming emotional attachments.	Frequency and duration of international, internal and local moves	Di Masso et al. (2019), Gustafson (2013)
Characteristics of attachment	Attachments can be positive or negative, strong or weak, or rooted or consciously created. They can be forged intentionally or be unselfconscious. Different attachments interact differently with emotional outcomes and behaviours.	Connecting emotionally, cognitively, instrumentally. Emotions are positive, negative, ambivalent	Hummon (1992), Scannell and Gifford (2010), Lewicka (2011b)
Dynamics of attachment	Attitudes to place, places that are most significant, and places themselves, change over time. People can gain benefit from attachments to more than one place, and the relative importance of places can change over time.	Multiple attachments; changes in locus of attachment or attitude to place.	Bailey, Devine-Wright, and Batel (2016), Devine-Wright and Quinn (2020)

Note: The table provides an explanation of why these characteristics are important to understand in the context of a protracted refugee situation, the codes that were applied during data analysis and references to supporting literature.

Codes used to identify each respondent in the results section below match the names of the transcripts within the data repository. The abbreviations are: SYR = Syrian refugees, PRS = Palestinian refugees from Syria, LEB = members of the Lebanese host communities; and PRL = Palestinian refugees from Lebanon within the host communities. Summary data on each respondent (including age, type of accommodation, length of time in Lebanon) can also be found in the Data List on the online data repository.

Drawing from the place attachment literature, and pilot fieldwork in the area, we constructed an analytical framework pertinent to protracted displacement. The framework focuses on significant places, levels of mobility, characteristics of attachment and dynamics of attachment. In the field, conversations focused on everyday life and daily routines; significant people, places and objects; places considered as home or where people felt at home; connections to distant places; memories; and changes to places over time. Home was defined broadly, using multiple terms, such that it could encompass residences, neighbourhoods and nation or country. Table 1 provides justification for the framework, as well as indicative codes used when analysing the data.

5. Results

5.1. Significant places

In Syrian refugees, places to which respondents could ascribe meaning and emotion were in Syria, or significance was ascribed to Syria as a nation and homeland. Instrumental connections of refugees to Syria are still strong, maintained through communication with people still living there or visiting. Refugees received updates from visitors returning from Syria, young people travelled to Damascus to take Syrian school exams, people ordered medication to be delivered from Syria and family relationships were maintained through mobile phones.

The quotes below show the excitement people feel about hearing news from a person who has just returned from a visit and how technology (video calls in this instance) enables them to visit virtually. The first is from a young Palestinian refugee from Syria who came to Lebanon in her teens seven years previously. She describes she seek connections to home, contrasting with her current situation, living in a converted cattle shed:

Yesterday a lady came from Syria, and people were all around her asking her about Syria. It’s like she is going to the haj. How is Syria? How is the situation in Syria? It is as if you are asking about your son … (17_PRS)

This Syrian refugee woman in her forties had been in Lebanon four years and lived in poor-quality rented accommodation. She had explained how their home in Syria was everything. The interviewer followed up with questions regarding how that bond was maintained, despite not having been there for years. She responded:

There is a series on television in which I see the streets and the area of Damascus. Even through the phone we enter to the Damascus areas and the Hamidieh souk. I always ask my brother-in-law about the news from Hamidieh souk. What is the news? (laughter) (9_SYR)

Connections are also maintained by sharing memories with other Syrian people in Lebanon. A sense of solace was found in the memories and nostalgia for a life lost in Syria. When we asked how people escape the unrelenting stress and difficulties of their life, many respondents spoke about how they would come together with other Syrians to reminisce and recall the places of their past. The quote below is from a Palestinian refugee from Syria, about 30, who had been in Lebanon for four years. She was discussing with her husband the places to which they still had attachment – in this case the market in Damascus – and the emotions associated with those memories:

You feel it has warmth, it has the warmth of the past. It is really beautiful … But of course the person’s morale would be destroyed during the crisis and he would remember anything that used to make him comfortable. You feel comfort towards those nice beautiful areas. The food stalls, the ice cream (laughter), those stories, Al Azm palace  …  (11_PRS)

PRS expressed a longing for Syria in ways indistinguishable from Syrian refugees. However, they also had strong place identity rooted in their Palestinian heritage and thus, when we asked about significant places, Palestine was mentioned alongside Syria. The quotes below are from the two PRS who spoke about their connection to Damascus in the earlier quotes. Here they articulate their fundamental connection to Palestine and how the connection is maintained despite being of the second or third generation of Palestinians living outside Palestine (and never having visited):

It is true that we were raised in Syria and lived in Syria and born in Syria and everything was in Syria, but if you go to the origin, it is Palestinian. Of course. (17_PRS)

We teach him from what we were taught, he will teach as well. There is always a nostalgia towards the motherland. Do you get me? Even if they did not see it and we never saw it, but they still learn it. (11_PRS)

Within the local host population, both Lebanese and Palestinian Refugees in Lebanon were able to identify significant locations within their local area and articulate their meaning. Places were valued because they brought comfort, spiritual relief and peace of mind and relaxation, or were imbued with memories from childhood, or significant moments – for example, a marriage proposal. Significant places often had elements of proximity to nature. For example, respondents identified locations by the river where they camped and swam as children. The quote below is from a Lebanese man in his fifties who has lived in the area his whole life; he is able to articulate well his connection to a significant location, the grounds of a local monastary:

I am very attached to the Taanayel Monastery. That place is very spiritual, I feel that I go whenever I want and I find myself there. I sit alone there. (18_LEB)

This Lebanese woman in her thirties has lived and worked in the village her whole life. Significant places are associated with childhood memories:

Respondent: The graveyard. It’s the place I like to visit the most.

Interviewer: Why do you like to go there?

Respondent: Because it makes me feel very comfortable

Interviewer: What is it that makes you comfortable when you go to the cemetery?

Respondent: You know why? It’s because the cemetery is next to our house and since we were children we used to go and play there, it’s right next to the cemetery, just cross the road. (12_LEB)

5.2. Levels of mobility

In their initial months in the country, refugees may move between accommodation every few months because of evictions or seeking cheaper rents or better conditions. However, on a day-to-day basis, refugee mobility, both Syrian and PRS was extremely limited and their flat, informal tented settlement or the end of their street, was as far as they ventured. This was driven by the cost of travel, fear of passing security checkpoints without official residence papers, and avoiding potential confrontations and negative social interactions. A common theme in the interviews was that of keeping to oneself to avoid trouble, not only with the local host population but also with other refugees in the camp or neighbourhood. Thus, refugee journeys are limited to trips to the medical centre, pharmacy or market, to obtain UN assistance, and occasional visits to family members.

This quote is from a Palestinian Refugee from Syria, a woman in her early thirties who had been living in the same flat for seven years with her two children and mother, only venturing to the end of the street. However, she is not entirely unhappy with the situation:

Honestly, I walk from my house to the village entrance and I come back, this is my entire journey (laughter) … maybe because I did not face problems in it … outside I faced problems. I don’t go out. Only to [local towns] when I have to visit the United Nations or something. (13_PRS)

This Syrian refugee came to Lebanon four years previously, moved four times, and now lives in an informal tented settlement with her husband, her own five children and three orphans. In her interview she spoke at length about the lack of interaction between Syrians and Lebanese, and the hostility in interactions, despite Syrians and Lebanese people interacting in various ways before the conflict:

I never had any interaction with them, never. Only a bit in the hospital but not on a personal level. I told you that I stayed a long time in the hospital … While I was there I would hear Lebanese people telling the nurses: ‘don’t book for us beside the Syrians’. This was the situation. I was never in contact with them, never. (2_SYR)

However, for some that were living closer to the centre of the town and had been able to access work, there were positive interactions with their Lebanese neighbours and employers. This Palestinian refugee from Syria who had been in Lebanon for five years in rented accommodation, spoke fondly of her Lebanese friends (one of whom walked into the room shortly after):

Yes, I used to work in the market and they became close to me and I became close to them and we became like a trio, we like each other … and we laugh with each other, yes, thank god … (19_PRS)

The Lebanese host population could also be characterised as low mobility. However, the Lebanese host community exhibited high levels of agency and chose to stay because of positive associations with place. Respondents articulated the relief they felt when they returned from Beirut and crossed the mountain ridge to descend into the Bekaa valley. They expressed a strong reluctance to live anywhere else, and a close connection to the people within their community. For example, this local business owner in his forties, gave the example of how he turned down the opportunity to work with a famous professional in his field in Canada due to his connections to place:

If I were in Beirut, I’m like the fish that goes out of the water, I get life back again when I get to Bekaa … I got an opportunity to travel to Canada, but I refused. (20_LEB)

Within the respondents interviewed, PRL did not express the same reluctance to leave and unselfconscious attachment to the Bekaa Valley. PRL articulated how their options in life were severely curtailed by their refugee status and the limitations placed by the government on rights and freedoms, making such attachments almost an impossibility.

5.3. Characteristics of attachment

For refugees, the tent or flat they inhabit is the main place in which they can exercise agency over their own lives. Customising their living space generates a sense of self-efficacy and control. Over time, people have formed instrumental attachments to their accommodation because of the relative comfort and safety it affords in an otherwise unpredictable existence and because of difficulties in reacquiring possessions. Being able to eventual own a washing machine was mentioned as a milestone by more than one respondent. The idea of slowly creating a comfortable place is articulated well by this 30-year-old Palestinian woman from Syria living with her mum and children and working to make ends meet. Slowly over time, she has improved her family’s condition to the point that it feels like home:

I became comfortable in it. Let me tell you something, I rarely leave the house. You would always find me here. I move this here and I move this one there … this is what I do. As you can see, the house is a bit spacious. It is not in a corner. Thank god, it is good, yes … don’t forget that I have been here in it for three and a bit years. I would feel bad if I had to leave it. (19_PRS)

Rare, but present, were those who have begun to form emotional attachments to their accommodation as they become imbued with memories. The quote below is from the same Palestinian Refugee from Syria who we cited earlier in the paper discussing how she barely leaves her street:

Interviewer: So this village is part of you now?

Respondent: I feel that, yes. Sometimes I feel like changing the house and looking for a smaller and cheaper place, but just thinking of it makes me change my mind. I can’t leave. Even if I go on a visit now I don’t feel comfortable until I get back here.

Interviewer: What makes you miss this house the most?

Respondent: Perhaps because my children grew in it and wherever I look I see memories, their movements … (13_PRS)

Overwhelmingly, however, responses of refugees (Syrian and PRS) showed that the measures implemented by the Lebanese government to create a hostile environment were working. Raids on camps, security checkpoints and difficult processes of renewing residence papers all contribute to a negative experience and an impossibility to connect and attach to a place. This respondent sums up the conditions of insecurity in which they live:

My home is in Damascus. Here we have a tent. The land is not for us. We have nothing here. If you make a small mistake here, they would kick you out. (3_SYR)

The potential for places to accrue significance and meaning is thus limited, with many emotions that do arise being negative, associated with illness or fear for personal safety. Even within their own accommodation, refugee safety is not guaranteed due to raids on the tented settlements, and the risk of fire, financial insecurity and finding rent was a continual concern. Thus, the home is experienced with a sense of claustrophobia. This respondent, a 35-year-old Syrian refugee woman who had come to Lebanon with her husband four years previously, was living in rudimentary accommodation in a small community outside the town:

Look at the way we are living. In winter it leaks, we sleep wherever it’s dry. But why are we living in this house? Because its rental is cheap and not expensive. Do you get me? (6_SYR)

In this quote a Palestinian Refugee from Syria, the same woman who in Section 5.1 was enthusiastically describing her excitement on hearing news from Syria, elaborates the claustrophobia, boredom and dismal conditions that define refugee lives:

We wake up, we clean, we move stuff, if we want to cook, we cook. If not, we sit. This is the daily routine, nothing much, no change. You sit amidst the smell; do you see the sewers beside us? You think: ‘Where would you go?’ You can’t rent a house. You are suffocating from all sides. Same routine every day. (17_PRS)

In stark contrast, strength of attachment in most Lebanese respondents was high and people interviewed expressed an unselfconscious rootedness to their village. In the quote below, a Lebanese resident who has lived in the village his whole life, and whose quote in Section 5.1 showed how he was able to identify meaningful locations, reflects on the consistency of his attachment to the place:

There is a weird connection … with all its negatives … perhaps the environment is not clean, whether there is a Syrian crisis or another security crisis; there is a spiritual link here. (18_LEB)

The host community also comprises Palestinians, who are themselves refugees in Lebanon and thus their emotional bonds to the town and community in which they have grown up are complex. They find themselves in the dual role of being both refugees and host communities and exhibit characteristics of both refugee and host community groups in terms of their relationship to place. Despite having limited rights, including being unable to work in many professions, own property and vote, Palestinian refugees recognise that Lebanon is their home and acknowledge an attachment to their house, their local environment and the people in it. This tension is represented well in the quote below. The respondent is a Palestinian refugee from Lebanon in his early fifties, who has lived in the area his whole life. He works in maintenance at the UNWRA hospital and has lived in the same house his whole life although he does not own it.

Respondent: Most of the time you feel you don’t belong to this country because they make you feel that you are a stranger … there is discrimination between Lebanese … this makes you feel disappointed because you are living in a country where you are spending your money and contributing to the economy in Lebanon

Interviewer: Do you feel that part of you is Lebanese?

Respondent: Of course, because Lebanon embraced me just like many people … we cannot say more because Lebanon has become our second home … we ate and drank in it, we interacted with people in it, we lived our life in it … and we will die in it. (8_PRL)

Thus, the PRL do not have the unselfconscious connection to place of the Lebanese host communities. Others articulated only place ambivalence due to the limitations imposed on them as refugees. This respondent below (aged around 40) came to Lebanon as a child. His family has their own house and he runs a business:

Interviewer: What is your connection to this place?

Respondent: Nothing.

Interviewer: Nothing.

Respondent: Emptiness, I just live here and have a business here. If I could do more, then I would.

Interviewer: So you are saying that you are forced to be here.

Respondent: Of course, I have no other option. If I had other options, I would have taken them. (1_PRL)

5.4. Dynamics of attachment

For refugees, both Syrian and Palestinian, attachments to Syria were increasingly symbolic as Syria is altered by the conflict. Refugees recognise a tension between memories of the past and the realities of the situation in Syria. We have used quotes from the young Palestinian Refugee from Syria quoted below twice before in the paper. First to highlight her excitement on hearing about Syria, and then describe her claustrophobia at the drudgery of her everyday life. Here, she reflects on the reality of her aspirations for the future:

I imagine that we will all unite again and that our home will be rebuilt and we would live a normal life, just like our life was in the start. We don’t want to think for the future, what will we do, no. We only want to think a bit about the past … (17_PRS)

For the host population, respondents described changes in the area. Interviewees tended to distinguish between gradual development in the village, and changes associated with the arrival of the refugees. However, some hosts who felt particularly hostile to the refugees ascribed general problems, relating to a lack of infrastructure, to the refugees. Gradual changes included destruction of historic buildings for new developments and environmental degradation, particularly water pollution and loss of green space. The quote below is from a business owner in his forties who earlier was quoted for how he articulated strong place attachment (see Section 5.2).Here he articulates sadness at the loss of meaningful places.

Of course, there is a memory in every place … but the places where we had these memories are gone already … we had a playground to play in but now they built a school above it … so much has been built over memories … (20_LEB)

However, many of the Lebanese respondents also mentioned urbanisation associated with the refugees. The increased population, the need for housing and the potential to rent properties to Syrian refugees had meant there was a lot of construction and fewer fields, lawns and trees in what had once been an agricultural valley.

Changes associated with the refugees also related to the social fabric of the village: a loss of a community feeling, changes in norms and behaviours, a sense of overcrowding and feelings of insecurity. The respondent below has been quoted twice before to demonstrate the strong attachment to place in Lebanese respondents. Here he describes how he has begun to feel like a stranger in his own town since the arrival of the refugees:

The feeling towards this place changed after the Syrian crisis. You used to pass by anywhere in the village and would say hi to 90 percentof the people because you know them. Imagine now, I only meet my relatives and the other villagers on occasions. If you go for a walk, you wouldn’t say hi to more than half of the people because you don’t know them. This is something weird in the village. (18_LEB)

Security concerns relating to the refugees were a common theme. In their milder forms they were associated with the idea of not knowing everyone in the village anymore. In their more extreme form, they related to fears of weapons in ITS and increased levels of crime. Some comments represented a repetition of xenophobic discourses of politicians and the media in Lebanon. Anti-refugee sentiment was present in most of the interviews with the local population. The woman quoted below is in her thirties and had lived in the village her whole life (quoted in Section 5.1). She articulates a perceived threat that, without specifics, appears based more in prejudice than fact. For those more sympathetic to the refugees, negative emotional responses were often qualified with caveats of the need to meet humanitarian responsibilities. Further, some respondents spoke out strongly against the exploitation of Syrians in the area.

The village changed a lot, the thing that changed the most is that we have foreigners now in the village. Yes. It is not safe anymore. Even if you’re sitting here you’d still be afraid. (12_LEB)

The dynamics of place attachment not only related to place change, but also to identity changing as people moved place. PRS described how the Palestinian dimension of their identity had strengthened since arriving in Lebanon. Some associate this change with the now first-hand experience of refugeehood, rather than hearing how their parents or grandparents were forcibly displaced. Other PRS associated their change in place identity with their treatment by the Lebanese government. In Lebanon, their primary social and legal identification is Palestinian, and as a Palestinian they face social exclusion, marginalisation and the curtailment of rights. This had not been the case in Syria.

6. A place-based understanding of refugee and host wellbeing

The results show the importance of connections to distant and imagined places, the contrast between negative associations with place in the refugees and rootedness in the local host population, the impact of refugees and hosts on each other’s place identity and ability to form attachments, and the ways in which place identity can change due to external circumstances. In this section, we use the place attachment literature to further interrogate some of the dynamics of emotional bonds to place in a protracted refugee setting. These findings are summarised in Figure 1.

Figure 1. Elements of a place attachment approach to understanding refugee and host community interactions and wellbeing. The rapid place change that occurs with the arrival of large numbers of refugees threatens the place identities of the local population and causes feelings of solastalgia. Refugees who are unable to experience positive interactions with locals in place fail to establish a secure base in the new location and instead rely on nostalgia for home. Refugee hosts have multiple place-based identities that they draw on in different ways.

The local Lebanese host population articulated strong, positive attachments to place and were able to identify meaningful places and explain why they valued them. The Lebanese locals who had lived in the village all their life had strong place identity, which related to the symbolic value of the place for the individual and its distinctiveness (Albers et al. 2021). PRL presented a different picture; their emotional bonds to place were undermined by restrictions imposed on them by the Lebanese government.

However, during the interviews both Lebanese and Palestinian refugee hosts articulated a sense of loss and alienation, related to perceived changes in the social and physical fabric of the village associated with the arrival ofrefugees. This loss is insignificant when compared to the turmoil and grief experienced by refugees. However, it is nonetheless real and likely to undermine feelings of empathy and support for refugees if left unacknowledged. We suggest employing the term solastalgia to describe and acknowledge the negative emotional impact that refugee-related place change has on local populations.

Solastalgia was coined to draw attention to the negative psychological impacts caused by the destruction of one’s home environment (Albrecht et al. 2007; Albrecht 2019). The concept describes feelings of loss, stress and dislocation originally associated with the ecological and health impacts of an open cast mine. However, the concept has since been applied in other contexts to recognise feelings of loss and negative mental health associated with the impacts of climate and environmental change (Higginbotham et al. 2006; Warsini et al. 2014; Galway et al. 2019). Solastalgia correlates with place attachment – the more a person is attached to a place, the more strongly they will feel its loss. However, place attachment has been found to moderate the negative impact of solastalgia on future outlook and is associated with more place protective behaviours (Phillips and Murphy 2021).

A place attachment approach to wellbeing and social cohesion thus sheds new light on the Lebanese population’s anti-refugee sentiment. Place change threatens locals’ place identity. Where people have strong place identity, they are more likely to act to protect their valued locations as the place’s attributes are related to their own sense of self, and thus the place remaining desirable and valuable is tied to their own self-worth (Quinn et al. 2018). Potential threats to valued places have been associated with place-protective behaviours, such as community resistance to renewable energy projects (Devine-Wright and Howes 2010). Studies have also associated higher levels of place attachment with lower acceptance of outsider groups (Bernardo and Palma-Oliveira 2016; Wnuk and Oleksy 2021).

Solastalgia and place protective sentiments in the Lebanese host population have implications for the ability of the refugee population to form meaningful bonds to place. Anti-refugee sentiment in locals, and the hostile environment created by the government, meant that refugees were reluctant, or unable, to move freely and often lived in fear of police raids or eviction. On a day-to-day basis, refugees hardly moved with implications for their ability to attach to place. Attachments to place form through meaningful interactions with people in place (Scannell and Gifford 2010), and in the context of protracted displacement, this means interactions with the local host population (Glorius et al. 2020; van Liempt and Miellet 2021). Shared and common bonds to valued places build social cohesion and allow refugees to establish a secure base from which to build their wellbeing (Nicolais et al. 2021). Yet, the spaces in which refugees moved were so different from that of the locals that a common understanding of place is unlikely to emerge.

Thus, emotional responses to place in Syrian refugees and PRS were predominantly negative despite several years of living in Lebanon. Attachments, where they formed, were to their accommodation because it was where they felt most safe, they could exercise some agency (Ryan-Saha 2015) and memories were beginning to accrue. For some PRL, there was a similar apathy towards Lebanon – some Palestinian refugees acknowledged instrumental bonds formed by necessity, but expressed little loyalty or commitment to place.

For Syrian refugees, symbolic attachments to Syria, experienced as nostalgia, remained their most meaningful connection. Respondents described processes of remembering and reminiscing as beneficial, as people gained solace from coming together and remembering better days. In other refugee contexts, nostalgia has been found to have both positive and negative effects on wellbeing. Nostalgia has been associated with higher reported self-continuity and self-esteem, higher levels of meaning in life and social connectedness (Wildschut, Sedikides, and Alowidy 2019). It can help refugees acclimatise, acting as a buffer to the difficulties of everyday life. However, in people who show less personal resilience, nostalgia can limit feelings of optimism and aspiration for the future (Wildschut, Sedikides, and Alowidy 2019) and can also act against psychological well-being by comparing current deprivation with past comfort (Iyer and Jetten 2011). Therefore, symbolic links to Syria are no substitute for being able to establish a secure base in Lebanon.

Common to migrant, refugee and diaspora way of life is navigating multiple place identities that can shift depending on the social context (Ehrkamp 2005; Verkuyten et al. 2019). For Palestinians, the homeland plays an important role in individual and collective imagination and processes of self-identity (Hammer 2005). The way in which Palestinians relate to the Nakba – the 1948 forced displacement from their homeland – differs greatly between people (Al-Hardan 2016) and rather than being inherited by those born outside of Palestine as a static concept, is actively constituted, often through engagement with politics (Hammer 2005; Blachnicka-Ciacek 2017). Some PRS began to lean more on the Palestinian element of their place-identity when their Syrian identity was undermined by the social, political and economic exclusion imposed on Palestinians in Lebanon (which was not the case in Syria). For others, the Palestinian dimension of their identity had strengthened since arriving in Lebanon in response to experiencing first-hand the experience of refugeehood described to them by their parents and grandparents.

Palestinian refugees in Lebanon were refugee hosts (Fiddian-Qasmiyeh 2016) and as such demonstrated characteristics of both the Lebanese host community and the refugees from Syria as well. PRL articulated the negative impact of their refugee status on all dimensions of their lives. However, they have been displaced for over 70 years, with second or third generations now living in Lebanon, and thus have been able to establish a reasonable standard of living and levels of security, especially in comparison with the new arrivals. Several Palestinian refugee respondents in the host community expressed similar feelings to Lebanese nationals regarding the perceived negative impacts of the arrival of the refugees. Thus, the arrival of the Syrian refugees and the PRS touched upon and drew out, different dimensions of the place identity and emotional bonds to place of the PRL. Even in less acute settings, attachments to place change throughout the life course (Bailey, Devine-Wright, and Batel 2016).

7. Conclusion

In this paper, we applied the concept of place attachment from environmental psychology to understand the wellbeing of refugees and their host communities, and their interactions, in protracted refugee situations. The results are based on qualitative interviews with Syrian refugees and Palestinian refugees from Syria, in the Bekaa Valley in Lebanon, as well as their host communities that included Palestinian refugees. Interviews with these different communities sought to understand the strength, characteristics and locus of emotional connections to place.

The results show a rural Lebanese host population with strong place identities. This host population has experienced solastalgia caused by local development problems exacerbated by the refugee crisis, and by rapid population increase. This sense of loss, in people with strong place-based identities, could be contributing to anti-refugee sentiment as a form of place-protective behaviour. For refugees, a lack of mobility prevents meaningful interactions with people in place that would allow place attachments to form. This immobility stems, in part, from the hostile environment towards refugees created by the Lebanese government and media, and enacted by some locals. Instead of a secure base, nostalgia for Syria provides some respite from daily challenges. Palestinian refugees from Syria, doubly displaced, were increasingly defined, and defined themselves, by the Palestinian dimension of their identity. First-hand experience of the refugeehood of their parents and grandparents and the exclusionary policies of Lebanon were given as reasons for these shifts in identity. Palestinian refugee hosts demonstrated characteristics of both groups; a lack of a secure base in Lebanon but a sense of loss at the changes occurring to what was their de facto home.

A place-based approach to refugee and host wellbeing in protracted refugee situations foregrounds the need for a secure base, recognises the place change refugees cause, acknowledges the interactions between refugees and hosts in building and undermining place attachment, and is sensitive to people’s diverse and dynamic emotional bonds to place. Mental health interventions can recognise the negative impact that a lack of a secure base will have on refugees and help locals process their emotional response to place change. Social cohesion activities can be place-based, focusing on facilitating positive interactions between refugees and the host community in meaningful locations and engendering new place meanings in locals. Emotional bonds to place are a key part of forming a community (Manzo and Perkins 2006) and in these liminal environments, there is the potential for development interventions to shape places to the benefit of all inhabitants (Alaniz 2017).

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank Máiréad Collins at ForumZFD, formerly at Christian Aid, and Leila El Ali and Osama Hamzeh at Association Najdeh for providing links to refugee communities and guidance throughout the research; Suleiman Abd Al Baset Suleiman, Fatima Khodor Ayyache and Zain Saleh for field assistance and translation; Rima Gabriel for simultaneous translation; and Rayan Batlouni for transcribing and translating interviews. Ultimately, thanks go to the respondents for their time and hospitality. This work was supported by the British Academy under Grant number IC160149. The paper is dedicated to the late Mahmoud Hadid (1965–2019), without whom the research would not have been possible, and who is sorely missed.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Correction Statement

This article has been corrected with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by British Academy [grant number IC160149].

Notes on contributors

Helen Adams

Helen Adams is a Senior Lecturer in Disaster Risk Reduction and Climate Change Adaptation at King’s College London where she teaches on migration, climate change, adaptation and sustainable development. Helen’s research employs quantitative and qualitative methodologies to understand the impacts of climate and environmental change on human well-being. She has unique expertise in migration as an adaptive response to climate change, and on the links between subjective well-being and ecosystem services. Helen spent several years as a post-doctoral researcher at the University of Exeter, carried out her masters and PhD at the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research at the University of East Anglia, and has previously worked on adaptation to climate change in the Climate Change Expert Group of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development and the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. Most recently she was seconded to the UK Cabinet Office to work on science engagement for the COP26 Presidency. She was a Contributing Author to Working Group II of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s fifth assessment report, and Lead Author on Working Group II of the IPCC’s sixth assessment report.

Samar Ghanem

Samar Ghanem is a lecturer in Anthropology at the American University of Beirut (AUB). Her work is based in Lebanon, and her research focuses on social and political issues in the Arab region, using mixed qualitative research methods and oral history. Samar is trained as an Anthropologist with MA degrees in the field from the University of Oxford, and AUB. Previously she served as the Head of Social Research at the firm ‘Connecting Research to Development’, and the programme coordinator for the ‘UN in the Arab World Program’ at the Issam Fares Institute for Public Policy and International Affairs. Her experience includes programme and project management, field research, and research design, with a focus on qualitative research methods, on wide ranging projects including child poverty in Lebanon, research on Syrian refugees in Lebanon, and project evaluations, among others.